Thursday, June 24, 2010

Employee CO-CREATION is an act of innovating with the help of talent which is primarily NOT employed as INNOVATORS in your enterprise.

Be it the culture, the education, the upbringing or the personal interest - sheer DIVERSITY of talent available within the enterprise has huge untapped potential, and this latent talent is more than willing to collaborate and make a difference for the enterprise.

We are used to executing the given task as a project, where we apply control and a kind of PUSH to get things done. When it comes to creativity, the exact opposite works. Co-creation works on the principles of a PULL, where one creates a right challenge and puts in a right incentive for someone to provide the solution. The solvers (employees or non employees) are NOT hard pressed to deliver; in fact it is a voluntary act on their side, is done with far more willingness, with a passion to make a difference, and for intellectual satisfaction.

Today innovation is no longer a geek thing happening somewhere behind the closed doors. Now every individual gets excited by a new idea, and is in search of an avenue to share it. Small could be the idea, but the pride it delivers remain high.

‘But in our business we don’t need to innovate a lot’ is fast becoming the thought from the previous decade. Fundamental reason for this shift is the emerging knowledge from WITHIN which tells the enterprises that innovation has given them good returns, dollars has been made or dollars has been saved, brand has a better positioning and employee morale has seen a boost. Best part is - these benefits come from small, incremental and continuous innovation, not from a rare path breaking one.

Enterprises are deriving several ways to leverage this newly discovered POWER OF COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION. Be it through an innovation competition, seeking new service lines to enhance the revenue, cost cutting, productivity improvement, employee satisfaction & retention, for co-creating with customers or even for a latest trend around corporate social responsibility (CSR). The list ends only where the imagination ends!

Employee co-creation is one of those few LOW hanging phenomenon where it’s a WIN-WIN for both employers and employees.

ideaken enables enterprises when they need to collaborate to innovate with employees, and optionally with customers, research vendors, academia or with the global pool of talent. Enterprises can run ideaken platform with their own branding accessible only to their employees, and optionally and selectively open up to outside world.